As Summer draws to close and I sit in my office on this rainy Monday I am left contemplating a pretty spectacular summer as I listen to some banging summer tunes. Reflecting back I would say my aural summer started this year with the Eurovision Song Contest. On a wonderful night spent sniping at some and screaming for others Bobby, Ryan, and I endured the endless voting and even more endless plugs for Azerbaijan in the pursuit of Europe’s greatest song.

While perhaps not Ukraine’s most original piece of music – it’s basically When Loves Takes Over with trumpets – Gaitana really danced her way into our hearts with Be My Guest. Definitely the gayest number at this years contest, and that’s saying something indeed.

The sassy walk! The flower headband! The borderline tranny styling! Faux trumpeters! ALL AMAZING. Gaitana belted her way into my heart and was far and away my favourite on the night as well as for the summer that followed when I found Be My Guest a regular on my summer playlists. I love it.

Sidenote: “doing a Ukraine” shall now and forever be known as taking an already pretty great song and gaying up even more with some trumpets.

Another stand-out was eventual winner of the contest Loreen who wowed us all with her odd choice of dance moves which are best summed up by Youtube user jayyrr675:

I love this dance!
It’s so flowy and mysterious!

That it is jayyrr675.

This is obviously pretty brilliant but lacked the sheer over-the-top-ness that one would expect from Eurovision. (Eurovision is like the exclamation mark of music contests. MORE IS MORE!) Also, I think the song did not sound its best live. The recorded version is pretty brilliant but I’m not sure Loreen really gave it justice in the competition.

Either way she won so well done Sweden.

An important part of the Eurovision experience is the batshit crazy stuff that somehow manages to make it through to the final and such is the case with Suus performed by Albania’s Rona Nishliu. It’s basically a crazy woman screaming in a weird cape.

It came fifth out of twenty-five.

That being said I find the recorded version, and particularly it’s music video strangely intriguing. I’m also compelled to imagine what the Albanian Top 40 is like.

So there you have it. Eurovision! The gift that keeps on giving, all summer long.

As is customary in this go go 21st century world in which we live, I occasionally partake in evenings that set out to be merely a quick get together with friends and quickly devolve into “youtube parties.” I have spent many a pleasant evening at my friends’ Ryan and Bobby’s place watching endless Celine Dion – “C’Mon girlfriend shook me!” – or similar fabulous videos.

One video with which we’ve become completely enamoured is Girls Aloud’s performance of The Promise on The X Factor. It really is the clip that keeps on giving. At first we became transfixed with the beauty that is Nadine Coyle and her Carry On-style over-acting, the best moment of which comes at [0:37] with her ramming “BABE!” down our throats, but her odd hairography at [2:28] is also brilliant and her open-mouthed belting at [3:31] is again divine. Sarah is amazing simply in her ability to stand during her solos. The woman looks like she Winehoused her way to the studio and I don’t think even she would sincerely describe herself as a “walking primrose.”

Cheryl’s best bit is her dodgy solo [1:00] from which the floor seems to drop out as her voice drops lower and lower while Kimberly drops some tinny realness on us at [2:55] although she has some pretty epic serious-face at [2:08]. Nicola is unsurprisingly perfect throughout, not least during her flawless if too short solo at [2:14].

Other highlights include some seriously dodgy choreography the best of which is what can only be described as a “hand flap” featured at [1:19]. The fingers crossed “promise” move is also pretty legendary and who could forget the pyro-key change at [3:18]? There’s also some great Dannii Minogue bitch-face at [1:53].

This video has everything. Needless to say Bobby, Ryan, and I have learned the complete choreography.

Back to my original point though, this video needs to be a meme. Not just a rick-rolling I’m-sending-you-this-ridiculous-but-frankly-amazing-video-when-you-were-searching-for-something-else meme either. I envisage the pinnacle of the video – BABE! – inserted into the climax of every video on youtube! Imagine: “I’m the king of the… BABE!,” “Imma let you finish but… BABE!,” or a cat falls of a table and then… BABE! So good right!

As some of you may or may not recall, I rather enjoy watching Wheel of Fortune. Wheel of Fortune is sort of like an intellectual amuse bouche to the three course meal that is Jeopardy. In fact one of the great things about Wheel of Fortune is that you often find yourself getting the puzzles before anyone placed around the prize wheel has any idea what day it is, let alone what the answer is; it’s like they specifically find people who would have difficulty finding their way out of cardboard box.

So I was watching Wheel of Fortune the other day – quite a while ago actually but graphics like the one presented above do not make themselves – a puzzle came up in the “On The Map” category. Now the people on this particular episode managed to lower the already barrel-scraping intelligence expectations I have of Wheel contestants.

First of all the puzzle was plainly obvious even before the “Final Spin” warning went off.

Second, one women guessed the letter F when the puzzle was “A_C_LAND.” SERIOUSLY? WHERE?

Third, even when the contestants were told there were no consonants left it took two of them to solve the damn thing.

And finally, even when a contestant finally did get the U into Auckland, he came out with “I still haven’t heard of it.”

A new low Wheel of Fortune, a new low.

Wait, I just found it on Youtube! Well-played proliferated new media, well-played.

Sometimes in life your mind becomes clouded to a certain idea or thing because a person you dislike goes on and on about how great it is. Up until recently such was my experience with screamers. Until a couple of weeks ago I looked disdainfully at people enjoying this summer treat despite never having tried one.

Then my friend Ryan came to visit and told me to stop being such a tool and try one.

THEY ARE AMAZING.

Slushie good. Soft serve good. Together AMAZING. I have to hold myself back from not getting one everyday so deep is my love for this combination of frozen deserts. LOVE IT.

2. Long pop songs

I love long pop songs. Like a radio edit is a rightly amazing thing for most songs – editing out all the crap – but I love songs that defy this generalisation. Songs whose genius simply cannot be fit into a three minute version. Songs so amazing that ten minutes seems to scream by in four.

The obvious example here is The Money Note clocking in at [6:19] but others include electro epics Untouchable by Girls Aloud and Stuck on Repeat by Little Boots – [6:43] and [6:54] respectively – as well as Nina Simone’s Sinnerman and Santa Esmeralda’s Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood – [10:20] and [10:30] respectively. Something about the length of these songs just lets them build and build making the payoff that much sweeter. They are exceptions to the rule and that is part of what makes them special.

I just cottoned on to this the other day but you can now download audio from Youtube videos very easily using this website. It’s obviously completely illegal but totally amazing. And being honest, I’ve only used it to download versions of songs that I’ve been unable to find legally such as the immense version of Pet Shop Boys’ “Go West” as performed in Moscow at Live8, previously mentioned here.

so the video for la roux’s amazing ‘in for the kill’ has now been released and while the video itself is fantastic (click to view.*) the mix used in the video is a bit crap. the song has clearly been cleaned up from the version that i downloaded. the synths and voice are much cleaner but not in a good way. the dirty synths and often screechy voice are what makes this song for me. without it the whole song seems a bit flat somehow. it doesn’t have the same flow anymore which is quite disappointing as i was really looking forward to this video.

okay, so it’s still amazing just not quite as amazing as the version that had already leaked.

* i would have simply embedded this video and not bothered with all the screen caps but the universal music group has rather annoyingly disabled embedding for all of their videos. i don’t really see how it makes a difference to them one way or another but there you go.

so i finally got around to watching the finale of project catwalk and it was fantastic! crap-ass viv made a hat with little bats attatched on wires! i don’t know why they put her into the final three! what a huge mistake. i think the judges were blinded by the idea of having a self-taught middle-aged woman in the finals. MISTAKE. sorry ben de lisi.

anyway, the show was fantastic and the most deserving designer won by a mile. i watched the last 2 episodes on youtube and not only was the video quality pretty stellar, they were ripped from the uk broadcast so they had the original music intact. whenever i watch project catwalk on slice i am acutely aware of the lame generic music overlayed where real music should be. real music makes a huge difference to the feel of a reality show: specifically, making it feel much less tacky.

i really hope they come back with another season of project catwalk but take ben de lisi off the judging panel and have him as just the mentor. that was the worst idea they ever had. maybe a new host might be a good idea too. perhaps sophie ellis-bextor. she’s fantastic at everything, obviously.

on a random sidenote – looking at that picture it reminded of how mean i think the judges were to fionnula. she’s the one to the left of kelly osbourne in the sea-foam coloured top. they even had the nerve to kick her off the week a fashion editor declared her outfit to be the best in an interview. poor fionnula. i loved her.